Actions Speak Louder: Editors at Self Magazine altered photos of Kelly Clarkson to slim her down — “only to make her look her personal best,” editor Lucy Danziger wrote on her blog. No shocker. Except that the issue, for September, is packaged as the “Total Body Confidence Issue.” And in it Clarkson says “I’ll be different sizes all the time. When people talk about my weight, I’m like, ‘You seem to have a problem with it; I don’t. I’m fine!’” Clarkson has dealt with this before (“they photoshopped the crap out of me,” she blogged about a recent album cover). Question for Danziger: how much saturated fat is there in a plate of crow? [Self]

Cue Carmina Burana Danger Music: Angela Gheorghiu, the soprano around whom the staging for the Metropolitan Opera’s upcoming “Carmen” was designed, withdrew from six performances “for personal reasons.” She’ll still sing on April 28 and May 1, but has bailed out of all performances between the New Year’s Eve debut through January 21 (including a January 16 matinee scheduled for worldwide simulcast). Breaking commitments is supposed to happen after New Year’s Day [AP]

Funny People: The $5,000 Thurber Prize, awarded for accomplishment in humor, announced its current nominees. There are four: Sloane Crosley for her collection of essays on twentysomething life, “I Was Told There’d be Cake”; New Yorker jester Ian Frazier for his parenting book “Lamentations of the Father”; Don Lee’s novel “Wrack and Ruin”; and Laurie Nataro’s nonfiction book “The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death: Reflections on Revenge, Germophobia, and Laser Hair Removal.” We’re thinking about all kinds of funny remarks to make about this. They’re all very funny, trust us. [AP]

Bigger Than Jesus: Who says an 8,500-word story can’t be enjoyed on the Web? Though the Times magazine won’t come to your door til this weekend, its Daniel Radosh opus on long-awaited Beatles-based video game is available now for Internet users everywhere. So let it be. [NYT]

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.